Killings of Rwandans continue after 'end' of civil war

Rwanda's 1994 internal conflict claimed the lives of between 50,000 to a million people. The Hutu-dominated government promoted a campaign of extermination against Tutsis and dissenting Hutus. But even after the Tutsi-dominated Patriotic Front toppled the government and ended the killing spree, attacks against civilians continue to take lives. Both the Hutu militias and the Tutsi-dominated Rwandese Patriotic Army have been responsible for killings.

But last Thursday, Ntaganda was awoken by the crackle of gunfire as dozens of Hutu militiamen armed with machineguns and anti-tank grenades swarmed through his village at Tamira, 80 kms from the capital Kigali....The attackers, carrying flashlights, stepped into a side room and murdered Ntaganda's mother and three of his children with gunshots at point blank range. ...They then broke into his room and opened fire, killing his wife instantly and leaving him for dead.

According to eyewitnesses, the Hutus were systematic in their attack. They used hand grenades and guns as well as clubs and machetes. ...BBC correspondent, Amelia French, who visited the camp, reported that young male refugees were collecting the bodies of small children for burial. Most had been killed with machetes. ...One baby, she said, had been burnt to death beside its mother when attackers set fire to their tent.

At the end of 1994, the Rwandan Government declared that the camps for the internally displaced in southern Rwanda, believed to harbor Hutu militia, must be closed. By April 1995, an estimated 250,000 out of the original 380,000 displaced remained in the camps. Operation Retour, agreed between the Rwandan Government, UNAMIR and UNREO, failed to convince the vast majority of the displaced to return voluntarily to their home communes. ...On 22 April 1995, thousands of displaced in Kibeho were massacred by the RPA during the forced closure of the camp. UNAMIR failed to protect the victims.

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